Restoring the Northern Everglades

Challenge

Over the past century, vast tracks of land from Orlando to Florida Bay have been transformed for agriculture and urban development.

Drainage, irrigation, flood control, and other water control projects have transformed south Florida, creating an economic powerhouse but degrading water quality and flow as well as wildlife habitat.

The extensive water- and land-use changes in the Lake Okeechobee watershed have fragmented lands, put threatened species at risk, and pushed excess water and nutrients into regional water bodies.

The un-natural lake level fluctuations, resulting from the extensive drainage in the watershed, harms the Lake's littoral zone resulting in a loss of critical Bass spawning areas and wading bird habitat.

Currently, during periods of high rainfall, nutrient-laden freshwater from Lake Okeechobee is pumped through canals to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, where it damages their fragile ecosystems.

historic everglades flow

As a result of the massive drainage, on average 1.7 billion gallons a day of freshwater are pumped into the ocean—a tremendous loss for people and nature.

Solution

FRESP's 8 pilot projects are examples of dispersed water management, a new option for providing water related environmental services. Defined as shallow water retention managed by private landowners, dispersed water management offers a new and complementary approach to regional public works projects.

Regional public works projects are typically publically owned and managed water treatment or storage projects.

Many of the regional public works projects – Storm water Treatment Areas (STAs), deep storage reservoirs, Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) -- are included in initiatives being implemented by the state of Florida such as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), Lake Okeechobee Protection Plan (LOPP) and the River of Grass Initiative.

Dispersed water management on ranchlands offers an additional option and compliment to regional public works projects for addressing the Lake and Greater Everglades ecosystem's water management challenges.

Because the services generated by the different approaches are not exactly the same there cannot be a direct comparison. Each type of water management approach has characteristics that must be considered in making a decision about how funding for the different options will be allocated. Some of the key characteristics of dispersed water management projects include:

  • Land is not purchased and taken out of agricultural production, the local economy, or tax rolls.
  • Projects can be operational within one to two years.
  • Dispersed water management projects have operational flexibility and can provide either water retention or hydrological restoration services depending on the needs of the lake.
  • Contracts are fixed term allowing buyer and seller to re-evaluate benefits and costs and decide whether or not to extend the contract.
  • By contributing to ranch financial stability helps to maintain the habitat services generated by ranchlands.

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